USA > Connecticut > Hartford County > History of Hartford County, Connecticut, 1633-1928, Volume I > Part 4
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It may be remarked again at this point that full comprehen- sion of the why and wherefore of the historic achievement of the men of the River Towns cannot be had if one is too absorbed in the romance of the flight from the mother country and the thoughts, customs and doings of the people as pioneers. There have been other pioneers and other romances. These were not of the category of the hegira from Egypt, yet America today, with its government as originally established, is a hardly less historic outcome.
There cannot be comprehension without an appreciative un- derstanding of the period in England from 1629 to 1640, the years of no Parliament and of the tyranny when England's constitu- tion lay crushed. At the time of the Warwick Patent, King Charles and Laud were seeking in various ways to correct what they considered a blunder in approving charters as they had been approved, but never so fiercely as after Laud's advancement to
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the archbishopric in 1633. Companies and councils under the charters were being upset; blind power, tumbling the pillars of English tradition, would seize its victims overseas and would check development by terrorizing. The small mass in America like the great mass in England was stunned, bewildered. Men of the Pym and Hampden calibre did not, in America, have the op- portunity of their prototypes; their private correspondence itself revealed caution and anxiety; they were driven to veiling their thoughts-and some students have not yet penetrated the veil; it was for them, in the wilderness, to get still farther away from terrorizing influence, to assert themselves, unobtrusively, for their good, and bide the results. There was reason for those who would remain at the Bay, under the shadow of Laud's sceptre, to adhere to high prerogative, whatever their mental reservations, and to class distinction. There was reason for Ludlow, in civil life, and for Hooker, in religious life, to follow the impulse to seek some other place, more remote. Bits of written phraseology are evidence of the anxiety of Winthrop and others who would re- main, and there is presumptive evidence that they came into veiled collusion with the outgoers, particularly through Win- throp's own son.
It was natural that men of Massachusetts, with more wealth and less financial obligation than the Plymouth Pilgrims, gave more thought to what they were accustomed to in England- affairs of church, of state, and of towns. Taken together they believed and, with Cotton, earnestly asserted that God never or- dained democracy for the government of the church and people; the intolerant oligarchy and then the aristocracy they and their successors maintained till the Revolution forced Hooker, Ludlow, Haynes and others to seek new homes. Hooker's Newtown, Lud- low's Dorchester and Watertown by indirection were the seats of disaffection. The hunger for freedom of belief could not be appeased in a locality where only church members could be free- men and where the ministers were civic dictators. The conditions were too analagous with those in England; in fact there were indications in some quarters of the Bay's yielding to the recent. royal demand to surrender; Laud and the King could not see con- stitutional government suppressed in England and cultivated in her colonies. It was true that more space was required, but Newtown's boundaries were enlarged without silencing the for-
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mal petition to the General Court to go elsewhere. Mr. Hooker, calmly but eloquently, was showing the error of government by church; Ludlow, in the elections, had seen a new light. The importuned General Court voted May 6, 1635, that petitioners might seek some "convenient" place. This did not particularly include Newtown people, but their six visitors to Windsor whom the hospitable Brewster had mentioned had been sent to find a convenient place, with final choice of Suckiaug, "commodious and beautiful," Hooker understood. Agawam might have been the choice but Rev. Thomas Parker's men-Pynchon's party-had pre-empted that. The permission was given specifically to the people of Dorchester and Watertown, the court voted two cannon for the "river plantations" and in September, 1635, William West- wood of Newtown was appointed constable, with authorization to the towns to choose officials of that rank. Oldham in May of 1635 had gone by special permission to Pyquaug with members of the Watertown congregation, including Rev. Richard Dana, but not as a church, and their new home was called Watertown.
Ludlow, all his life an adventurer, had been the most ener- getic of the outgoers. It has been seen that he had established and maintained claims at Windsor. Rev. Mr. Warham, not en- thusiastically, joined with a number of his congregation in mak- ing the journey in 1635. Rev. Mr. Maverick, deterred by age, remained in Dorchester and reorganized the church. The pio- neers took their livestock with them. The terrors of the winter were increased fourfold when the boats carrying their provisions were frozen in near the mouth of the Connecticut. Starvation threatening, a party of seventy sallied forth in the snow and cold and with almost superhuman effort made their way to the Rebecca, a distance of sixty miles. Fortunately a warm rain aided in releasing the boat and in making it possible to get back to Massachusetts. A smaller party struggled back overland. Those who remained subsisted on acorns, malt and grain, assisted by the Plymouth and Stiles men. The Indians also were helpful. By early spring all were on the frontier again and more were coming.
Not as in the case of Watertown, there was practical una- nimity for the pilgrimage in Mr. Hooker's church. Elder Good- win himself was of those who went in the fall to Suckiaug to pre- pare the way. The other men were John Steele, William West- wood, Thomas Scott, Stephen Hart, William Pantry (who in
Falls
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(By permission)
MAP MADE BY WILLIAM DELOSS LOVE, AFTER LONG RESEARCH, FOR HIS BOOK "COLONIAL HISTORY OF HARTFORD"
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Watertown, which is now Cambridge, had occupied the land which was to form a large part of Harvard Square), John Barn- ard, William Butler, William Kelsey, Noah Ely, Richard Webb, Michael Clark, Richard Goodman, Edward Elmer, Matthew Marvin and Sergeant Thomas Stanley. With their families these numbered about fifty; nine others came but returned to Water- town to sell their houses. The following March, Westwood and Steele were the plantation's representatives in the river General Court.
The terrain that Goodwin's party found at Suckiaug north of the "rivulet" sloped eastward toward a low meadow along the Connecticut. The slightly hilly upland was for the most part densely wooded and it was along this that they marked off their lots, from Little River northward. Thanks to the long research of Rev. Dr. William DeLoss Love and the data gleaned by William S. Porter in 1839, eked out by A. L. Washburn, a map of the first settlement is furnished. Their main road (Front Street now) ran from the ford leading to Pyquaug (Wethersfield) to the north meadow (Village Street). Below the falls in Little River (at the ledges over which, though cut down, the water still swirls), a small palisado was erected with Sergeant Stanley's lot close by. Thence a roadway (now Main Street) was run northerly to a knoll called Sentinel Hill (where Main now runs northeasterly) and beyond to Matthew Allyn's lot. A watchman was stationed on the hill. The bend of both roads westerly was due to the presence of an Indian village in the north meadow. The river made the island previously referred to and another just below, a large part of which, on the East Hartford side, is well within the memory of men today.
About half way from the palisado to the hill a large space was set aside, as customary with the New England settlers, for their "Meeting-house Yard." From this "yard" ran a lane (Prospect Street) to the Indian trail by Little River, and there, on the east corner, a lot was reserved for Thomas Hooker, while on the west corner one was marked off for the "teacher," Rev. Samuel Stone. The "Goodwin's Corner" of that day was about where the Munici- pal Building stands; the "Goodwin's Corner" of later generations was then Goodman's corner. Those named on the Love map include, in white space, those who returned to Newtown for the winter and suffered much on the journey. "Adventurers," a name
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sometimes applied to several of these in the land records, means those who selected land before the formal laying out of the planta- tion. The man Chaplin, named on the map, forsook Suckiaug for Pyquaug, where he is mentioned as the "proud and wealthy ruling elder" of the church, and became a trouble maker.
Much of that first winter at Suckiaug was spent discussing title to the soil and the relation of the Warwick Patent thereto. Though officially (and publicly) they were supposed to be within the Massachusetts boundary, else they could not have brought along a pretense at formal government, they knew they were out- side of it, and they must have some definite legal right to settle- ment, especially if trouble with the Dutch should arise. What- ever the evils in England there must be some form of connection with that government. It was farthest from sane thought to throw off allegiance and stand alone against the perils of savages and sturdy Dutch traders. There had been communication be- tween the elder Winthrop at Boston and the younger Winthrop, Connecticut governor under the Warwick Patent, relative to Stiles' adventure at Windsor under patent rights. The Dutch, on their part, had communicated to Winthrop relative to the pres- ence of the settlers. Elder Goodwin had had one amicable con- ference with him. The Windsor problem could wait, and with it the Agawam problem which Pynchon's settlement was creating.
There certainly was an undertone of harmony with the Suc- kiaug men, while neither Winthrop could be unaware of Hooker's aversion to a royal governor. The elder Winthrop recorded in his diary that a Watertown man went to and returned from Suckiaug during that winter. It must have been a message of importance that would cause him to brave the perils of such a journey. The message seems to have confirmed the "Adventurers" in their hope that the settlement could continue and therefore they could hasten to buy their land. And it is well to mark that the patentees were willing to yield the point that the settlers must acknowledge a foreign appointee (the younger Winthrop) as their governor even until the end of his year in July; he could build the fort and houses at Saybrook, placing Lion Gardiner in command-which he had done just before the Dutch reached there on a similar errand,- and what should come after that could be a matter of adjustment; neither side in the state of affairs existing abroad could foresee what was to come. So the compromise was reached, giving ac-
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knowledgment of the patentee's rights and permitting a freedom of action in government, with provisional government by com- mission till organization could be effected.
The agreement which took the form of the General Court's "Commission for a Provisional Government" makes that some- what neglected document of utmost value in tracing the steps of development toward the establishment of a free government. According to ancient custom, the whole 700 words of it are put into one sentence, and then there is still much to be understood between the lines through the study of contemporary activities summarized in this narrative. Taken in sequence, the points are:
First-(Acknowledgment of cause.) "Upon some reasons and grounds, these "loving friends" of the three towns and other places "are to remove from this our government and common- wealth."
Second-(Acknowledgment of Warwick Patent.) "We" and "John Winthrop, Jr., Esq., governor," x *
"appointed by certain noble personages and men of quality interested in" the river plantations and yet in England, "on their behalf" * * *
Third-(Acknowledgment of freedom to form a government.) "And in regard to said noble personages and men of quality have something engaged themselves and their estates in the planting of said river, and by virtue of a patent do require jurisdiction of the said place and people, and neither the minds of the said per- sonages (they being writ unto) are as yet known, nor any man of government is yet agreed on, and there being urgent necessity for some government" *
Fourth-(Ludlow, chairman.) Commission to be Roger Lud- low, Esq., (Windsor), William Pynchon, Esq., (Agawam), John Steele (Hartford), William Swaine (Wethersfield), Henry Smith (Agawam), William Phelps (Windsor), William Westwood (Hartford), Andrew Ward (Wethersfield). Ludlow's name was first because he was an assistant in the General Court.
Fifth-(People as court.) The commission, on day or days which they shall appoint and upon convenient notice, shall as- semble "the inhabitants" of the towns to proceed as a court in administering justice, to look to the ordering of all affairs, includ- ing business, building, planting and defensive war (if need require).
Sixth-(To be satisfactory to Massachusetts.) The commis-
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sion should not continue beyond one year and should cease sooner "if there may be a mutual and settled government" agreeable to . "said noble personages, or their agent," to the inhabitants and to "this commonwealth."
Seventh-(Warwick boundaries left undefined.) And this was not to prejudice the interests of those "noble personages" in the said river and confines thereof within their several limits.
There unmistakably are indications here of the keen mind of Ludlow and of the touch of Hooker and both Winthrops. There was enough of "royal personages" to distract Laud's attention should Warwick or other be compelled to read it to him, and there was ample for Hooker's first steps. Furthermore, such a docu- ment never would have been approved in Massachusetts had the necks of all the authorities been as stiff as other incidents and certain letters would betoken; the arguments of Hooker and Lud- low had had more weight than otherwise is indicated; the younger Winthrop was helpful in what today might be analyzed as an adroit plan to enable the Hooker people to have their way, even to the uttermost, for independent government, and there was no breach between Winthrop the son and Winthrop the father, the leader in the Massachusetts hierarchy. Still further it is prob- able that the popular Governor Haynes of the Bay had had a voice in this. Incidentally, it was an hour when a new royal threat against the Bay charter could not have been taken as appreciation of constant loyalty of noble personages to the government.
The rest is chiefly incidents familiar in most part from much writing. Rev. Samuel Stone, John White, Samuel Wakeman (sworn in as constables in April) and one or two others hastened to Hartford in the spring of 1636, and the first General Court un- der the provisional government was held April 26. Winthrop had reached his fort at Saybrook in March. On Mr. Stone's arrival at Suckiaug, the purchase of land from Sequassen was made by him and Elder Goodwin. The original was lost later-as also was the Dutchmen's-but it was confirmed in 1670 by the descendants of Sequassen who gave it, and a letter of Lord Saye and Sele's had spoken of it. The first-comers had kept off the Dutchmen's land south of Little River. Now the purchase had been made of all ter- ritory from Wethersfield to Windsor, White and Wakeman took lots just across the "rivulet." More land in the Dutch section was
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occupied but none that was under cultivation. The Dutchmen's diplomatic protest to Winthrop entered upon a long sleep.
Rev. Mr. Hooker and his large company, men, women and chil- dren, his feeble wife in a horse-litter, left Newtown May 31 (1636) and were in the plantation two weeks later. They drove 160 cattle with sheep, swine and fowls. Thomas Bull was in special charge of "six cows, four steers and a bull" which the elder Winthrop was sending to Saybrook. Their course was along the path already familiar to the English since Oldham first reported it. It was the regular Indian trail, well marked and with Indian villages along the route, and led to the former "Bissell's ferry" at Windsor. The name "Bay Path" or "Connecticut Path" was applied to it for a dozen years or until new paths were taken, by the exigencies of new settlements, when it was called the "Old Path." Crossing the river at Windsor, the party came down on the west side. The con- ventional story has the party carrying household goods. Imagin- ative artists, hard put to it by such an account, drew pictures showing something like "prairie schooners." Better information is furnished by the diary of Lion Gardiner, commandant at Fort Saybrook, who reported many boats carrying people and goods. Other colonists came later in the year and several the following year.
The three river towns were "plantations" in correct parlance till the Constitution was adopted, but Hartford anticipated official authorization and organized at once on the town plan; whence its claim to being the oldest organized town in the state. In effect and for convenience in distributing land, it was two plantations after the Hooker party took locations, one north and one south of Little River, but in relation to the colony and for the Pequot war so soon to follow, it was one. Windsor acted only as a body of inhabitants, not even townsmen being chosen. In Wethersfield the plantation system was adhered to after town organization had been decreed by the General Court, presumably because of a dis- agreement between the church and inhabitants over prior rights relative to distribution of land.
This provisional commission or body of magistrates, whose terms would expire about one year from March 3, 1636, held their first court April 26 in Newtown (Hartford). In all there were seven sessions, concluding February 21, 1637, at which session the towns were given their permanent names. Ludlow, Phelps, Steele
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and Westwood attended all sessions; Swaine did not arrive from Watertown, where he was a deputy, till after the first two ses- sions; Pynchon was present at but one, in November, and his son- in-law, Smyth, at none. According to the terms of the agree- ment, it would be necessary to continue some consistent form of government; the method was at hand for this and the existing system was satisfactory. The inhabitants undoubtedly convened as a court of election on March 28, 1637, and reelected the mag- istrates excepting Westwood of Hartford's north plantation, who was succeeded by Thomas Welles of the south plantation, in order to have both places represented. All the "inhabitants," or ad- mitted dwellers in the plantations, had the franchise.
In general the pioneers in this formative period were in four civic classes: The "inhabitants" were those admitted by a major- ity vote of the voters and took the oath of allegiance; the "house- holders" were heads of families, men or women, and owned a certain amount of real estate; the "proprietors" were the original purchasers of land, not necessarily residents, or those to whom such sold their rights, voting as "admitted inhabitants" and en- titled to share in "common and undivided lands."
The election court was held in Hartford as the most "con- venient place." The court sessions also had been held there, with the exception of one at Windsor and one at Wethersfield. But there were disadvantages. Hartford, being central, was preeminently the most convenient place for meeting, and yet no one place could be convenient for the body of electors when con- vened. Town government not having been adopted, a good solu- tion was found in having inhabitants in each plantation elect three "committees" each (not "committees" in the modern sense but rather trustees, in the old-time sense) who should elect the magistrates and also should share the responsibilities of gov- ernment. They should be like town deputies and such they were denominated after towns were established.
It would appear that the first session, May 1, 1637, adjourned twice, according to later custom; and then there was a new election with only two "committees" from each plantation before the November session, and at the next and last session in Feb- ruary, 1638, adjournment was sine die with a new election in prospect. The magistrates convened as "particular courts" as well as General Court.
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The one graver problem than government had obtruded itself at the first session of 1637, and that was war-offensive that it might be defensive. The story of the rapid development of free government has to be interrupted.
(From Barber's "Historical Collections ")
THOMAS HOOKER AND HIS CONGREGATION PASSING THROUGH THE WILDERNESS, 1636 Hartford's First Conveyance
IV PEQUOT WAR INTERRUPTION
CAUSE OF THE WAR AND ITS TIMELY EFFECT-MURDER OF OLDHAM A CLIMAX - WETHERSFIELD MASSACRE - BAY COLONY COOPERATES - UNCAS FAITHFUL.
Casual history credits the origin of the Pequot war, Connec- ticut's only war, to the murder of John Oldham and his crew of two Narragansetts off Block Island and to the hasty action of Governor Henry Vane of Massachusetts in sending soldiers to avenge on suspects the death of a resident of his colony. Causes of war are not readily determined but in this instance the early grievance of the Pequots has been overlooked. A proud and warlike race, never forgetting, had resented the acts of the Eng- lishmen in not recognizing their supremacy over the mild Sequins of the valley. The moment Lieutenant Holmes restored a Sequin sachem to his clan and bought land of him, the Pequot pride was touched; when Newtown also recognized the original owners instead of the haughty usurpers, anger was kindled.
Whether or no the greater peril was from Indians or Dutch- men, the colonists had sensed that there must be a state of pre- paredness, and to that end it was written in the first year's rec- ords, June 7, 1636, that every man must have constantly ready for the constables' inspection two pounds of powder and twenty bullets or be fined ten shillings, and there must be monthly train- ing. The first decree of the court, when it was learned that Henry Stiles of Windsor had bartered a "piece" for corn, was that no firearms should pass to natives under any circumstances. On their side the wrathful and wary Pequots were still in dread of blunderbusses. They actually had acquired a few, but could rely only on the knife and tomahawk, arrow and ambush. And it was likely to be necessary to include all white men in their hostility ; for Sassacus, their chief, earlier had had special cause for smiting. His father, who had sold land to the Dutch, had been killed by them because he had killed a hostile Indian who
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had come to trade with the Dutch, contrary to agreement. That had been followed by the especially brutal murder of Captain Stone and Captain Morton, Massachusetts men, and their crew of nine in their boat on the Connecticut on their way up from Virginia to trade with the Dutch. With false promises and much obeisance to Massachusetts, Sassacus had escaped punishment for that and his awe had not been increased. Now that more white men were coming within his realm and treating him dis- dainfully, and now that the Narragansetts to the east were in unfriendly mood, and Uncas, his rebellious son-in-law, was court- ing the favor of the whites, it was time to spread terror. If war resulted, he outnumbered the able-bodied whites of the river towns four to one, and moreover they were unfamiliar with the wilderness and with Indian tactics. Oldham, with George Fen- wick and Rev. Hugh Peters, had been parties to the conferences with the Pequots after the Connecticut River murders.
If Oldham's murder, July 5, 1636, was a part of Sassacus's campaign, there was no evidence of it. The final outcome, how- ever, was to set him and all the other Indians right in their esti- mate of English strength. John Gallop, sailing from Connecti- cut to Massachusetts, inflicted first punishment when he came upon the vessel, fired into the Indian assailants, driving most of them into the water to drown, saved two boys who were kins- men of Oldham, recovered Oldham's mutiliated body, rammed the craft, left it to drift ashore with two Indians in the hull and made off with one prisoner. Almost immediately Governor Vane hurried a force of ninety men, under John Endicott and Captain John Underhill, military trainers in the colony, to bring back women and children as slaves and to compel the Pequots to give up all who had had a part in any of the several murders. Endi- cott discharged his mission except as to securing slaves and the possible murderers. On his way he went by Saybrook where Gardiner declared a "hornets' nest had been stirred up," yet allowed twenty of his men to join Endicott.
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